Frank Fragment
by ucferrarisgirl
Summary: Frank meets his intellectual match & gets more than he bargained for in a psychological game of chess


FRANK: UC Fragments  
  
In this Fragment, the newly-arrived UC Team's Frank is having difficulty obtaining information from a female suspect. She's stubborn, but she has a reason. Frank is asked, by her, to do something totally unorthodox. When Frank finally understands why she was so reluctant to give him what he wanted, he lets her know the reason why she shouldn't feel bad about the situation. Timeline: a few days after the events in UC's episode "Fathers & Sons"  
  
*********************************  
  
Frank got up from the slatted wooded chair, and began to pace in front of the woman.  
  
She was a frustrating subject, this stringy haired, wild eyed woman who'd been picked up on a cocaine rap. Sitting in the room's other wooden chair, in the pale blue jail jumpsuit, a sheen of sweat on her forehead, she was adamantly refusing to answer his query as to where the rest of the shipment of cocaine was being stored.  
  
Naturally, Frank had turned up the room's thermostat.  
  
Frank himself appeared to be unbothered by the higher temperature.  
  
"Does it have to be so hot in here?" she asked him as he paced. Astute, isn't she, Frank? But Frank did not let her comment ruffle his placid exterior.  
  
"Forgive me. Thermostat's gone haywire and our illustrious mayor refuses to allow the funds to fix the heating," Frank told her. There had to be some way, some little way of getting her to give him the information that he wanted. She knew where the rest of the shipment was located, but she hadn't taken possession. No. She'd only received a baggie of Colombian white from her supplier. She'd accidentally overhead her supplier's whores discussing the location of the shipment. This is what she had told the arresting officer, apparently in the hopes of getting off. Now, she was being stubborn.  
  
Frank's objective today was to obtain the location of the ton of cocaine which had been run in to Miami from Puerto Rico, cocaine's usual entry point into the United States. The cocaine had managed to elude the Coast Guard and had been hastily dumped into smaller speedboats idling just inside the line demarcing international waters.  
  
He was keen to get the information about the location of the shipment, more so for the people rather than the cocaine. The information the woman held would lead him to the persons running the drug ring.  
  
He paced the room, dressed lightly, as if he'd come in from a round of golf, which is what he had told the arresting officers to tell the woman.  
  
"Can I have something cold to drink?" she asked.  
  
"Forgive me again," Frank told her. He motioned to the guard to get the woman a cool drink. She was profusely sweating by now and Frank had decided to allow her something cool to drink. He had to take it easy, for although he knew that warm temperatures made a person sleepy, and thus less able to resist his questioning, prolonged exposure to warm temperatures tended to agitate a person. Frank had to keep a delicate balance.  
  
The guard brought the drink, "Here it is, Yvette," the guard said, putting the cool soda in front of the woman. She picked it up and took a long sip. "Thank you," she said to Frank.  
  
Frank gave a nod of his head.  
  
Setting the drink down, Yvette said, "There is a reason why I'm not telling you, Mister Donovan."  
  
"Really?"  
  
She merely looked at him. He looked at her with his placid brown eyes.  
  
"Do you want the information, Mister Donovan?"  
  
"That I do"  
  
"I could be 'persuaded' to involuntarily give up the information," Yvette said.  
  
Frank withheld his reaction. Just what did she want? "You're already facing a 10 year rap on the cocaine charge. The best I can offer is a five to seven term, provided you give up the information."  
  
"If I had a head injury, say, from a few police officers 'accidentally' giving me a more than a few right hooks, I'd be dazed. Knocked unconscious. I wouldn't be able to remember questions doctors asked me in order to ascertain the extent of the head injuries," she told him cooly.  
  
Frank merely grunted. She was a cold-blooded individual. But there must be a reason why she just asked me to have her assaulted. Was she looking for a lawsuit against the city? He considered her information. Yvette Montcarlo, 31. Three kids under the age of 8--all living with a cousin who wanted nothing to do with her, but who was more than willing to care for her kids. Grew up poor, just on the edge of society, always looking in on what she considered the good things in life. Cocaine addict, picked up several times by the law. She obviously knew about the high profile 'assault by a police officer' lawsuits currently wending their way through the system. Naturally the press was more than happy to divulge the details.  
  
Was she angling for a lawsuit against the city? What was her strategy? Frank decided he needed more information, and time, to consider her request.  
  
He took a sip of water from the paper cup he had brought in with him.  
  
Yvette merely looked at him. He looked at Yvette. Stalemate. The psychological chess game was in action.  
  
Unless.  
  
"There's something more you want to say, but it's not about the location of that cocaine shipment," Frank said. Yvette lowered her eyes, acquiesing without saying a word or moving her head.  
  
"And you will, undoubtedly, suffer 'extreme consequences' if it's known you were the one to supply the information," Frank continued. Again, Yvette lowered her eyes, again, acquiesing Frank was bang on.  
  
"Is there a way for us to get the information from you without your knowing it?" he asked.  
  
"No. The location of the information is known to me, and to one other person," she paused. "It, it is written down," she finished softly.  
  
Frank was feeling frustrated. He considered her choice of words. The location of the information. This meant there was hard information, not intangible information located in her head. The information was somewhere, currently out of reach, but safe. If he could ascertain the location of the information, he wouldn't have to query Yvette, who was proving to be a formidable opponent.  
  
Then he considered her words further and realized Yvette had given him the answer to what he needed to know. And she'd said it softly. He just had to dig to get it. He realized that either Yvette matched him in cunningness, or else she had inadvertantly let slip her tongue.  
  
Frank's beeper went off. He picked it up, looked at the number. "Excuse me for a moment. I'll have some more soda brought to you," he said as he exited the room.  
  
The call could be returned later. Frank needed time to compose himself. Needed time to figure out his next move. He motioned to the guard to bring Yvette's arrest report. He stood just outside the interrogation room, reading through her statement.  
  
He paused. His lips pursed for a moment. Then he flipped back a few pages where Yvette had listed the addresses where she had stayed in the last six months. She'd been picked up at the pricey Delarose Resort.  
  
He noticed she had listed she'd been homeless six months ago. She'd been living on the edge of the intracoastal waterway, near the marina. Near the marina, Frank knew, were storage units available to rent. Miami was the gateway to the Caribbean and many a romantic sailor dreaming of a solitary life at sea used Miami as their starting point.  
  
Storage units could be rented on a long term basis, and were generally used by those wistful sailors who preferred to be out in the warm Caribbean waters and needed somewhere to stash extra belongings not needed while at sea.  
  
This could very well be the location of the information to which Yvette was alluding.  
  
Frank handed the arrest report back to the guard. He turned down the thermostat so the room would become chilly. He opened the door and walked back in. "Excuse the length of my absence," he said. Yvette just looked at him.  
  
"Have you considered my request?" she asked him.  
  
"Yes. I have considered it and I am denying your request," he told her.  
  
Yvette launched herself out of her chair and towards Frank. Connecting with him, she momentarily knocked him off balance. He, being at least a foot taller than Yvette, was able to poke her in the throat, twist her arms behind her back. He motioned to the guard to cuff her. Frank sat her down on the slatted wooden chair, rather hard. Yvette grunted.  
  
"Satisfied?" he asked Yvette. "Launching yourself at me was not a good idea. Assaulting an officer of the law will add additional time to your sentence," he told her.  
  
He motioned to the guard to take Yvette back to her cell. Let her ruminate for a while. He'd wanted to make a point that he was in charge when he had forcibly sat Yvette down.  
  
Once she left the room, Frank made a call to the storage facility near where Yvette had lived as a homeless person. He discovered, much to his pleasant surprise, that there was a storage unit rented out to a Yvette Montcarlo. She'd rented it six months ago. Frank wondered why Yvette hadn't rented the unit out under a different name but then again, Yvette was a heavy cocaine user and her memory, at 29, was already fading. Sad, Frank thought. She could have been quite attractive had she taken another path in life.  
  
But then he had to think about Yvette again. Was she really that cunning, despite her memory being addled by cocaine? Or had it been an inadvertant slip of the tongue?  
  
He made arrangements for a search warrant to be executed on Yvette's unit at the storage facilty.  
  
Arriving at the facility with the police, Frank waited until the lock was cut off. When the unit was opened, Frank saw, to his surprise, counterfeiting plates.  
  
Tagging the evidence, a rookie cop called him over. "Who is these people in this picture?" he asked Frank.  
  
Frank looked at what the cop was holding. He could not believe his eyes.  
  
"One of them is Sonny Walker." Frank pointed to Sonny. The other man Frank didn't know. A younger, much prettier Yvette was recognizeable hanging on the arm of the man Frank didn't know. The trio was on a boat. That meant there had been a fourth person, the one who took the instant photograph.  
  
On impulse, he flipped the picture over. On the back, in handwriting Frank recognized from an arrest report he'd read a few hours ago, he read:  
  
"Me, A. Delray and Sonny, my birthday, 1988"  
  
So the information Yvette wouldn't divulge was the name of Antoine Delray. The name Frank recognized. The face of Antoine had eluded him, and the entire Justice Department, since Antoine came to power several years ago. Up till now, no one had seen his face. He operated far more undercover than Frank or his team had ever done.  
  
Antoine was a notorious crime king and it was no wonder Yvette was terrified of divulging the information, and why she had requested Frank to have her assaulted by police officers. She wasn't after a payoff from the city.  
  
She was trying to protect what life she had left.  
  
If Antoine, at any time, suspected Yvette of divulging the location of a photograph of himself, he'd put out a contract on her life.  
  
"This is a photograph of Sonny Walker, Antoine Delray..." Frank heard the rookie suck in his breath at the name of Antoine Delray, but he continued giving his information, "and Yvette Montcarlo," Frank finished. "I'm more interested in Antoine than in these counterfeiting plates. She must have been holding them for him, and had slipped the photograph in the locker. Frank had wondered why Antoine had allowed his photograph to be taken in the first place.  
  
He considered his options. He could always re-interview Yvette again, and ask her how old she was in the photograph. He looked at the photograph again. Sonny, as always, was ageless. Frank now noticed that Yvette's hair had been pouffed, and she wore big earrings, brightly colored earrings. Her makeup was a bit garish, and way overdone on the blush, Frank now noticed, but still, she had been much prettier in this picture. She looked fresh.  
  
Fresh.  
  
Fresh, as in: before used.  
  
Now he remembered how teenage girls liked to look in the late 1980's: big hair, brightly colored big earrings and garish makeup, overdone on the blush.  
  
The photo had been taken before Antoine had started his life of crime. But the photograph remained in existence, and Antoine suspected it. He'd have a contract out on her life if he thought she'd given the photograph, however inadvertantly, to the police. Yvette had obviously been his girlfriend as a teenager, probably a teenage runaway, judging from the freshness of her face. His mind flashed back to the lined, worn face looking back at him in the stalemate he had hated so much.  
  
Like many teenage girls, she had kept this memento of a happier time. She'd obviously told Antoine she no longer had the photograph; she had been homeless at the time she'd rented the locker. Frank knew the counterfeiting plates were Antoine's, and Yvette had last seen Antoine six months ago when he'd given her the counterfeit plates for safekeeping. But why Yvette? Why not have one of his own lackey's keep the plates?  
  
Frank considered the situation. Yvette had been homeless six months ago. Yet when she had been arrested, she'd been staying at the pricey Delarosa resort. Not cheap.  
  
Now Frank understood why Yvette had agreed to keep the plates. Antoine had paid her handsomely. Something else in Frank's mind clicked. The plates were part of the shipment which had been stolen six months ago, right after he'd quit the FBI as a hostage negotiator. Fortunately, Treasury had cancelled the serial numbers used on the plates, a fact which Antoine obviously didn't know, for if he did he would have just dumped the plates somewhere. And he'd needed a fast place to hide them and someone to safeguard them. Someone just like Yvette.  
  
*************  
  
Two weeks later, Yvette was sitting on the hard, narrow bunk in her cell. She'd been crying, and her eyes were puffy. The small black and white television she'd been suddenly been allowed to have in her cell the other day was turned onto the news about the fatal shoot-out. Someone cleared their throat. Yvette looked up.  
  
Without saying a word, Frank pushed the 'play' button. Somehow, Yvette wasn't startled to see Frank. But she was startled to hear the voice voice coming out of the tape player's speaker. She knew that voice, and knew Frank had obtained the photograph.  
  
"That bitch, Yvette?" she heard Antoine say. "I know she has that photograph of me and her from way back when she was a fresh faced whore just run away from home."  
  
Yvette heard Antoine cough. She looked up blearily at Frank, who merely looked steady at her, and still remained wordless.  
  
"I gave her 20 grand along with a few baggies of coke to hide my merchandise for a while, until the plates cooled off. Not a bad payoff. I have an offer on those plates for half a millon. The deal goes down tomorrow. Then, I'm having that bitch killed," Antoine's voice stopped, and he slurped soda. Yvette knew it was A&W rootbeer.  
  
"I have a whore who goes to see her sister in that jail. Her sister's the women's block trusty. My whore's going to give her sister some bad ecstasy to slip into the bitch's food. Kill her right off," Antoine finished. The was a chirring sound, and Yvette knew Antoine was in his limo, playing with the automatic windows, and she knew that Frank had had sound surveillance in the limo.  
  
Frank shut off the tape player.  
  
"Did you let slip the information?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"An escape route?"  
  
"These days, I can't remember what the jail fed me for breakfast yesterday. I kept losing my thoughts in that room, I had to keep hoping I reasoned it right. I, I could only sit there, hoping you'd take the bait and figure it out," Yvette said.  
  
"It worked," Frank said. He and Yvette looked at each other. Not a stalemate this time. It was a look of sadness on both their parts. She had so much to offer, Frank thought.  
  
____________________________ 


End file.
